Public Bill Committee

[Mr. Joe Benton in the Chair]

Written evidence to be reported to the House

LPGI 04 Unlock Democracy

The Committee deliberated in private.

On resuming—

Joe Benton: Good morning. Welcome to the proceedings. Will the witnesses please introduce themselves to the Committee?

Peter Facey:   My name is Peter Facey, and I am the director of Unlock Democracy, which is a campaign for democratic renewal established by the New Politics Network and Charter 88.

Ron Bailey:   I am Ron Bailey, the campaigns director for Unlock Democracy.

Alexandra Runswick:   I am Alex Runswick, the parliamentary and policy officer for Unlock Democracy.

Joe Benton: Thank you. The first question is a general one.

Q104Alistair Burt (North-East Bedfordshire) (Con): Good morning. The whole tone of your paper is critical of a failure to devolve power, which you describe as a missed opportunity. You say that, in your estimation, “the powers of Whitehall are left virtually untouched”. Will you say more about your assessment of the Bill as a devolutionary measure?

Peter Facey:   The Bill devolves power by giving powers to parish councils, and in relation to byelaws, and that is to be welcomed. However, with respect to the powers of Westminster, and in most policy areas, it reorganises the powers of local government and gives local government the ability to administer things better, but it does not actually shift power significantly downwards to local authorities or communities.

Ron Bailey:   There are probably two areas in which the powers of Whitehall are affected—in relation to byelaws and parish councils, but that is all.

Alistair Burt: It is not big stuff, is it?

Ron Bailey:   It is very small stuff, unlike another Bill before Parliament—the Sustainable Communities Bill, which gives councils the right to drive Whitehall action on local issues. We think that that is the way forward and it would complement this Bill.

Joe Benton: Let us move on to the other views of Unlock Democracy.

Q105Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Devonport) (Lab): The Secretary of State has talked about making a judgment against assessment criteria when considering whether councils want to change to unitary status, and has said that more consensus and a broad range of support should be commanded. On which criteria would you like the judgment to be made? Have you thought about that?

Peter Facey:   We have said that there needs to be agreement between the local authorities in the relevant local area, but beyond that we would like to see the involvement of citizens in the process. If local authorities decide to go ahead despite there being concern in the community, there should be a process by which the community can trigger a referendum. That would ultimately ensure a broad degree of consensus. If things are considered only between local authorities or between community groups, and not beyond and without the engagement of ordinary citizens, the process will be very difficult.

Q106 Alison Seabeck:  But you are suggesting that in the first instance the local authorities should take a view.

Peter Facey:   Yes.

Q107 Alistair Burt:  What do you make of the Bill’s power to direct?

Peter Facey:   We find that quite strange, given that the White Paper referred to broad consensus and the involvement of local authorities and local people. The idea that the Secretary of State would direct is against the rhetoric of the White Paper. We would like to see that power either strictly curtailed or removed completely, so that a change takes place only with the agreement of local authorities and local people.

Q108Dr. Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab): I am concerned that the word “consensus” has crept in. As I understand it, the Bill is about a broad cross-section of support. Is that different from consensus and, if so, how?

Peter Facey:   I do not know what a broad cross-section of support means. If you are talking about agreement between the actual local authorities involved, that is one thing but, if you are talking about a broad section of opinion, that could be anything. I would have to see a definition. If, in effect, you are going to abolish tiers of government, ultimately the citizens or voters in those tiers should have a say. That does not necessarily mean that they have to be offered a referendum at the beginning, but if there were significant concern, they should have a way in which to challenge the decision, so that they can force a referendum on the issue and their voice can be heard.
At the moment, the Secretary of State could decide that there was broad agreement and a local authority district council could be abolished. The citizens in the community cannot mount a challenge at that point, which is our concern.

Joe Benton: Thank you. We move to part 2 of the Bill that deals with elections in England.

Q109Tom Levitt (High Peak) (Lab): The White Paper put the proposition that, once councils had moved to hold council elections, they should not be able to return to a third, a third, a third when that is used. Do you support that proposition?

Peter Facey:   One of our big criticisms of the whole Bill is that the empowerment process is always one way, and this is an example of that. We can move in one direction, but once we go in that direction, we cannot go back. The same thing applies to elected mayors and executives. If we are to give local communities choice, they will have to have the ability to go backwards or change direction. In this case, simply saying to local authorities that they can go from elections by thirds to all-out elections but that they can never go back because that would not work for them, seems not particularly empowering of local communities and local councils.

Q110 Tom Levitt:  And which method—all-out elections or a third, a third, a third—do you, as an organisation, recommend?

Peter Facey:   We would probably recommend all-out elections, because they would give local people a greater opportunity to have a complete say over their local authority. Because we support moving to a proportional system as they have in Scotland, we recognise that that cannot be done under the system of elections by thirds. We would argue that all-out elections are a positive thing, but that does not necessarily mean that local communities have to take our view. We feel that the decision should be with local communities, not necessarily with ourselves.

Q111 Tom Levitt:  Is it not the case that over a four-year period more voters engage by voting under a third, third, third system than an all-out system and that a third, third, third system allows councils to evolve rather than to have a catastrophic change every four years?

Peter Facey:   But there was also evidence that it would become more difficult for political parties to find candidates. There are also situations in which the turnout for annual elections could be less than for an election that affects the whole nature of a council. There are strong arguments in favour of all-out elections, but our view is that that should be a choice for local people and the local authority—not for us, even though we would recommend that it was probably a better form of governance.

Q112 Alistair Burt: To pursue a structural point, I understand your point about it being a one-way process. But there has to be certainty in government. How do you resolve the conflict between wanting people to be constantly involved in having a say, yet if they take decisions to have one-structure elections or one-structure executives and then want to change their mind, the ramifications and costs of that are huge. Surely we cannot be that beholden on trends and shifts in opinion if we are to give certainty in how government is delivered.

Peter Facey:   There is certainly an argument for saying that, if you change to a new form of governance, it should have to be in place for a set period before it can be changed again. The triggers should be high, but if you adopt an elected mayor and have three or four elections under that mayor and the local people within the town or community find that that does not suit them in the end, why can they not raise a petition to change the process? At the moment, a citizen cannot raise a petition to get rid of an elected mayor, as is the case in Stoke where there is an elected mayor.

Alison Seabeck: You can.

Peter Facey:   As far as I am aware, you cannot raise a petition to abolish a mayor once you have one. If you are saying that that is the case, I shall bow to the Minister who is shaking his head but, as far as I am aware, I do not know of anybody who has had the opportunity to do that.

Q113 Alistair Burt:  But your point is that there must be some kind of reasonable trigger.

Peter Facey:   Yes.

Joe Benton: We move on to part 3 of the Bill.

Q114Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD): I want to link my question back to what Mr. Facey has just said about citizen involvement. One model is the indirectly elected leader. In many cases, there will be councils that, even under the existing voting system, do not have overall majorities. What view does the organisation take on political balance in the slates created by indirectly elected leaders? Perhaps we could hear Unlock Democracy’s views on a proportional voting system, which would clearly make that a much more common outcome.

Peter Facey: We would certainly argue that if you are going to have a cabinet, it should reflect the broad views within the community—the majority view. In my own local authority, no party has overall control. It has a cabinet made up of Conservatives and independents. If you are going to put forward a slate, that slate must reflect the views of the community.
There is a strong argument in local government to give people a choice on electoral system. If we are going to give them the choice on governance structure—an elected executive, an elected mayor, or a leader and cabinet—we should at the same time offer them the opportunity to change the electoral system. The argument that first past the post produces strong outcomes does not necessarily apply when there is an elected mayor, because the argument is, “You already have your governance, and therefore the councillors’ role is to represent the views of the local community.” The experiment in Scotland, where they will have proportional elections for local government starting in May, show that that is practical. Hopefully, it will give local citizens more choice. We support the Bill introduced by David Chaytor to give local communities a choice of electoral system as well as a choice of governance structures.

Q115 Andrew Stunell:  Is that something that you would like to see in this Bill?

Peter Facey: Yes, certainly. If you can give communities a choice on mayors or executives it is very difficult to argue that you cannot do it on electoral systems. It is a logical extension of the Government’s own position.

Ron Bailey: May I add a point of philosophy? If we believe that in a democracy, the people are sovereign—I presume that we all believe that—it must follow that they must be able to choose how they cede that sovereignty to their governments.

Q116Mr. Neil Turner (Wigan) (Lab): To followup your point about councils representing the communities, how would a councillor in Birmingham, for example, under a proportional representation system represent a community when in fact he represents 1 million people?

Peter Facey: In lots of local authorities, we already have multi-member wards. We are not talking about changing that, but about having a proportional system within those multi-member wards. That system has been adopted in Scotland, where they are electing between three and five councillors in a ward. We think that that can work perfectly well. The experience of having multi-member councillors has shown that it can happen. We are not necessarily talking, in lots of cases, of increasing the size of wards. We are talking about having people in a ward, and hopefully wards, who broadly reflect communities—I recognise that that is difficult in some areas—and giving voters the opportunity to have a range of views represented, rather than simply having one party representing them.

Alexandra Runswick:   Also, if we are moving towards the community call for action model of councillors being champions of particular community interests, it is important that people have a range of representatives that they can choose from and go to, so it does not just become one councillor championing one particular section of the community while others are unrepresented.

Q117 Mr. Turner:  Is there any evidence of that—councillors choosing which people to represent rather than representing the whole ward?

Alexandra Runswick:   If we move towards a single-member ward system and we empower councillors to take on that champion role, there is a risk that the more active groups within a community will have their say better heard and will get what they want from the council delivered more effectively. However, there is already a problem of different groups being less represented in local government and participating less in local politics. One of our concerns, if we were to move toward having single-member wards and empowering individual councillors, is that some groups might feel excluded from the process.

Q118Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con): I am trying to follow the logic of how empowering someone who has a democratic mandate and who those groups can kick out if they do not like what that person is doing will marginalise them?

Peter Facey:   It is a simple fact. I recognise that anyone who argues with MPs about the difference between single-member and multi-member wards is probably on to a loser, because MPs are the greatest defenders of single-member constituencies, but the reality is that if 40 per cent. of your community disagree—it may be a minority, but it is a significant minority—they may not get representation. We are saying that there is an argument, particularly when empowering councillors under the community call for action, for having a range of opinions so that contrary views with a significant community following are heard.
 There are plenty of examples of MPs writing back to their constituents to say, “I disagree with you.” We are not saying that that is wrong, but we are saying that there should be a range of opinion so that those who have views and are part of a significant minority should be represented too. If you simply go down to a single-member ward situation and empower councillors under the community call for action, there is a danger that some views may not be heard unless there are other ways to achieve that. I recognise that people who support the idea of single-member seats as the perfect form of government will not necessarily agree with me.

Q119 Robert Neill:  I just wonder: is it single-member, as opposed to multi-member, wards or empowerment that is the problem?

Peter Facey:   Empowerment is not a problem. For me, the problem is making sure that there are a range of views so that people can have their views heard. If you have only one channel for that, it reduces their opportunity to have their views heard.

Q120 Andrew Stunell:  Unlock Democracy’s briefing refers to the councillor in a single-member ward turning into a gatekeeper rather than a champion. Would you explain that point?

Peter Facey:   We welcome the community call for action. We think that it is a positive tool for local councillors, particularly those who do not come from majority groups—those from small parties as well as back-benchers and independents—but if that is the only route for communities to get their views heard, there could be a situation in which a campaign or view within a community does not get heard because the councillor decides not to support it and there is no process for it. We are looking for the extension of participatory tools and elements of direct democracy to give communities in such circumstances ways to make their voices heard within the local authority, not just through the representative system—as a complement to representative democracy, not a replacement for it.

Q121 Tom Levitt:  Lots of councils, of course, already have multi-member wards. They use the third, third, third election system. Surely councillors must be accountable to communities. Those communities often do not extend to more than a three-member ward, for example.

Peter Facey:   Which is why we are not sitting here and saying that you have to go down a particular route. Our whole message is that there should be local choice. I live in a rural village, and there is an argument that in terms of our community, extending it to a multi-member ward might not make sense, but I am not saying that there should be single-member wards in all circumstances. The idea of moving toward uniformly single-member wards is what I am criticising. If that is going to happen, and even where single-member wards already exist, there should be other ways that community views can be fed into the process and extra tools for empowering citizens. That is what we are talking about. There are dangers. We are not saying that they are always bad in all cases, but citizens need other tools to make their views heard.
The community call for action is very good, but we would like to see an opportunity for other tools. The Government have introduced things such as the ability to petition for mayors and now for executives—the first time that power has existed. That is great, but we would like to see that kind of idea extended more broadly, so that communities can use those tools and, even where their councillor does not agree with them, make a significant view be heard. There need to thresholds and safeguards, but there should be safety valves in the system to allow a community to exercise power outside of an election.

Q122 Alistair Burt:  However views are brought to the council, a system has to be devised to make decisions. Do you regret the fact that the Bill does not give the opportunity of having the committee structure as one of the options for governance?

Peter Facey:   Yes. I do not think that central Government need to set the exact parameters of how people are governed although they may need to set guidelines. The committee system can work. I do not think that it is necessarily the best system, but that choice should be made by local communities, not by a lobby group or Westminster.

Q123 Alistair Burt:  Bearing in mind that Lord Hattersley suggested that the Government dropped the need for referendums because, “Too many referendums produce the wrong result”, why do you think that referendum arrangements have been omitted from the Bill? Do you think that referendum arrangements should be in the Bill?

Peter Facey:   I think that one of the problems with the way in which referendums have been used has been that we have in some ways had government asking people questions. That is the wrong way to use the tool. Referendums should be there so that people can express their views to national or local government. I do not have a problem with the idea of local authorities being able to say that they want to move to one of the new governance structures and not have a referendum, but there should be a mechanism by which citizens in a community who disagree can put a brake on the process, have time to raise a petition—perhaps to a lower threshold than the one we have—and then hold a referendum. That way, you do not force referendums where they are not needed, because there may be community agreement, but if a council decides to move to a new structure and there is a significant opinion within a local community against it, the community should have the opportunity to trigger a referendum, in the same way that local communities have the ability to force a mayor to trigger a referendum on the decision. That system works in places such as Germany, where communities can delay and block things by organising petitions. That is what we are talking about.

Q124 Alistair Burt:  Can we take this as an example of what you call a missed opportunity? The language of the Bill is devolving, but in key areas where power could be transferred, the chance has been missed, and some other measure ought to be there?

Peter Facey:   Yes.

Ron Bailey:   We would welcome amendments tabled to bring about discussion, or a decision, on the introduction of a general power for citizens’ initiative. We may as well tell the Committee—to its joy or otherwise—that we are going to be starting a campaign to achieve that in the next few months.

Q125 Mr. Woolas:  What do you mean by citizens’ initiative?

Peter Facey:   It is a power at local level that exists in a number of European countries and in parts of the United States. In effect, it means that citizens can raise a petition and, if that gets to certain level, they can trigger a debate in a local authority and force it to discuss an issue and ultimately, after that, trigger a referendum. Different countries do it differently, but such a power exists in Sweden, Holland, parts of Germany, and parts of the United States. It takes some of the principles that are already there, as the Government have done, but extends them so that people can force their local representatives to at least discuss a controversial issue that they otherwise may not be willing to discuss.

Joe Benton: We move on to part 4 of the Bill now, which is about parishes.

Q126 Robert Neill:  I notice that in your submission you broadly welcome the extra scope for parishes, but you warn of the danger of them being seen as “tokenistic talking shops.” I read somewhere that last year, only 10 per cent. of parish seats were contested. What can be done about that? Can Government do more to guard against tokenism? How do we tackle the problem? How do we make parishes meaningful and get a proper level of participation?

Alexandra Runswick:   One thing you have to do with any level of devolution is give the institution some power to effect change. The Bill goes some way to doing that, but parish councils have been used very differently in different areas. There are certainly models of really excellent parish councils that involve communities and actually provide a vision for what that community wants to achieve, to change and to develop. However, they can also be quite small-C conservative and be used as a tool to block change. Therefore, it is very much about giving parish councils the level of support that they need, making sure that it is possible for new people to come into the process, and not being too prescriptive about exactly what form a parish council has to take. Obviously in the Bill, there are different options; it can be called a parish council or a village council.
Lots of areas have done that kind of thing already in that they have genuinely devolved power from a council level either to neighbourhoods or to parishes. In terms of engagement, you have to make sure that the parish  council can actually effect change and inspire a vision for that community and that it has the tools and training to go out into that community and convince people to take part. Although I welcome parish councils, I do not have this idea that suddenly there will be a million Londoners just sitting at home of a night thinking “I wish I had a parish council meeting to go to”. I am sure that people will be encouraged to go to meetings and to get involved in their communities but it is not simply a question of setting up the structure.

Q127 Robert Neill:  You mention London and perhaps I should declare an interest in having been a deputy chairman of the Commission on London Governance. We had some concerns about parishes in London. The one that I want to raise now is this: how, in the context of somewhere like London—a big urban area where parishes might be the same as or very similar to the ward— how does having a parish in those circumstances fit with empowering the ward councillor or councillors as local champions? Is there not a risk of confusion about who the driver is: the ward councillor or the parish?

Peter Facey:   There are different places and parts of London. It is a collection of small villages and communities. There may be areas where parishes can actually work. They may even be part of a ward and not the whole of it. I used to live in Croydon where parts of its outskirts are effectively small villages which may actually fit a parish perfectly because they are a type of community where that would work. There are also parts of London where councils have already devolved power to neighbourhood committees and to individual councillors. In those circumstances, I would not want to say to them, “Actually, you have to go for a parish.” Therefore, it can work in London, but I welcome the fact that the Government, in this case, are saying that the power is there, but not telling people that they have to do it.
There are ways other than parishes in which we can have the devolution of power within a local authority. What we welcome is the idea that power should be pushed down. That may be to groups of councillors in a particular area—there are models which various councils across the political spectrum have used—or it may be to individual parishes and town councils. There is some diversity there but the basic principle for us is power should be pushed downwards. Whether that is to a directly elected parish or to elected councillors operating in a neighbourhood forum does not matter that much to us.

Alexandra Runswick:   On your broader point regarding clarity on who has the responsibility and power to do what, I do think there needs to be more clarity, not just between parish and individual councillors but between parish, local government and central Government, about exactly where power lies and what powers can be exercised at which level. Not only but particularly in multi-tier governance structures it can often be very confusing for individual citizens to know who is responsible for delivering which service. More generally, we would argue that there needs to be a clarification of powers, we would argue in a constitution, between central and local government.

Q128 Robert Neill:  In the London context, do you not see the risk of actual confusion and conflict between the two because you are imposing something that has not happened in London for a very long time as opposed to in rural areas where parishes have grown organically, if you like, and are well rooted?

Peter Facey:   I am not particularly concerned about the possibility of confusion. I think there are parts of London that would like to have parish councils and giving Londoners the choice to have them, either by petitioning for them or for local authorities to use them, is a positive change. There is not a uniform London any more than there is a uniform anywhere else. London is a very, very diverse city with lots of communities. Although parishes may work for some areas, they may not work for others.

Ron Bailey:   I do not think it is correct to say that there have never been parishes in London. Prior to the London government Act of 1964, I believe, there were parishes in parts of rural Bromley, like Biggin Hill or Keston.

Bob Neill: None of my constituents have ever told me that, I shall go down the public library and find out.

Ron Bailey:   I think there were—and in the other parts that were taken into London under that Act.

Bob Neill: Not within active memory.

Q129 Dr. Blackman-Woods:  I want to return to your earlier point about bringing new people into parishes. Do you agree with the provisions in the Bill that allow parish councils to co-opt local people on to parish councils who have a specific position in the community?

Alexandra Runswick:   I certainly think it is worth bringing in as much experience as possible. As some people have said, one of the big problems with parish councils is that most seats are uncompetitive and it is difficult to fill the places. Regardless of whether election or co-option is used, I would certainly welcome people in the community who have specific skills being able to contribute to the parish council process. We might need to think about exactly how that is done and whether they are brought in for particular consultations that affect their area of expertise, or co-opted for a full term of office, but yes, I would certainly support their experience being used.

Q130 Dr. Blackman-Woods:  Are there dangers in terms of reducing the accountability of parishes, specifically if they are given more powers? If they have too many co-optees, they may just be seen as a talking shop.

Peter Facey:   You would certainly need safeguards. If you are going to move to an elected council or give more power to an elected council, to then dilute it by having a large number of people who are appointed seems contrary to the whole philosophy. There perhaps need to be questions about the number that you can appoint and whether they have voting rights or simply speaking rights. We need to preserve the democratic ethos of a parish or community council and, at the same time, recognise that they do not always have the expertise and that there may be arguments for bringing in expertise. I think the basic premise should be that the democratic system should be where the representation comes through and that, yes, you can bring in expertise, but there need to be safeguards around that.

Q131 Dr. Blackman-Woods:  But could it provide a mechanism to bring in the voices that you were talking about earlier, who may not get representation any other way?

Peter Facey:   Yes.

Q132Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD): One of the possible unintended consequences of unlocking democracy with parish councils might be that certain groups are elected who one might not want to get elected. Do you perceive that as being a potential problem?

Peter Facey:   Lots of people get elected who I do not necessarily personally like. If you believe in democracy, you have ultimately to say, “It is about the will of the local community”. As long as the system is fair and the rules are clear, I am not going to pre-judge the views of local electors and say that their choices are wrong. There is always a possibility of people being elected whom I find abhorrent. Already on local councils are representatives of the British National party. I support their right to stand, but abhor everything that they stand for. I recognise that as a problem and I also recognise that the problem may get greater, the smaller the unit involved. But, ultimately, if you are a democratic reformer, you have to stand by the democratic process, even though sometimes you may not like the people who are elected.
Our organisation is based fundamentally on the idea of trusting people. Therefore, I have to do no other than simply trust the local electors in an area to know what is best for them and hope that we can put a fair electoral system in place to ensure that the views of that community are fairly represented.

Joe Benton: We move on to part 5 on the co-operation of English authorities with local partners.

Q133 Alistair Burt:  On local area agreements, you welcome the move towards strategic working between the different agencies at local level, but you point out that local authorities are still what you call “first among equals” in this model. You also say that local authority agreements are set with the agreement of the main delivery target, which, of course, comes from the Government. Have I characterised your position correctly? Can you think of a different model for producing local targets and locally desired outcomes for communities?

Ron Bailey:   I would like to comment on the local area agreements. We welcome the Government’s proposals to extend and enhance them, together with what I believe is the Government’s stated intention to enhance the budgets tenfold. The Minister has said that whereas the LAA budgets are currently £500 million, they will increase to £5 billion. That is to be welcomed, but it is still only a small proportion of the national money spent in local areas.
An example is Kent, where the current LAA budget is £30 million. If that was increased by tenfold—to £300 million—it would be a good thing, but the total public spending in Kent from national agencies rather than from local authorities is £5 billion. So even extending the amount to £300 million leaves that figure as a small proportion of the £5 billion. In our view, a better model might be to require the Secretary of State to divide up the £5 billion between what is genuinely local and genuinely national, and to give the bodies that administer the LAA and the local authorities the power to spend and to re-allocate all the local money assigned to that area. Spending in Kent might then go up from £300 million towards the £5 billion. Some spending would still be national, but a large percentage would be genuinely local and would be spent by the local authorities. As you may know, the Sustainable Communities Bill does just that: it allocates local spending for local authorities.
Let me give a silly example of national spending. The Highways Agency is going to spend £7,500 on a puffin crossing in Ashford—a small amount of money, but there are dozens if not hundreds of such instances. Our view is that it is absurd for an unelected national body such as the Highways Agency to take that decision. The decision should be made by Ashford borough council and the money should be within its control.
The better model is not just to increase LAA spending but to say that all local spending should go through LAAs. The local authorities who participate in an LAA should not be just “first among equals”, but the driving force—because they are elected.
If LAAs are really going to be strengthened so that the bodies administering them can run the show as the locally elected bodies, those bodies should have some say on the kind of complementary policies that the Government should be introducing in their areas, and on the national policies that affect their areas, so that, with some caveats, they drive the relevant Whitehall policies. Giving LAAs and local authorities those powers would result in genuine devolution.
The Minister, Mr. Woolas, said in the House a week or so ago that it is often money rather than legislation that drives power these days. Giving LAAs and local authorities control of all the money for their area and the right to influence Whitehall policy for that area would result in genuine devolution both of central power and money. The Sustainable Communities Bill does exactly that, and could complement the Bill well.

Q134 Mr. Woolas:  Let us consider the example of Kent in relation to the dividing line. Benefits are the single biggest budget item in public expenditure in Kent. Do you think that the benefits system—pension credit, incapacity benefit, social security—should be controlled at county level?

Ron Bailey:   That may be something that the Government will say should be dealt with nationally. Within the benefits budget, however, there may be elements that have a local aspect, such as on the back-to-work allocation, though the level of benefit may be a national matter.

Peter Facey:   We are not arguing that everything needs to be put down to the local level; we are saying that the current balance is wrong. The Government agree that certain things are being directed from central Government or central Government agencies that can be better decided locally, because the local council and the local community have more expertise in relation to their own problems, and are therefore better able to work out what the priorities should be. We are not saying that everything has to be shifted downwards, but that the balance is wrong and we would like to see a better definition of it.
It may be that the Minister and central Government will ring-fence certain things as national more than I would like, but even if the Government were extremely conservative about what was national, we think that there would be significant benefits if some things were definitely local. The balance would shift.

Adrian Bailey: Minister, I will just read you the briefing from Kent on that very point. It says, “While benefit payments may be nationally set”—that is valid—“why isn’t back-to-work spending by the DWP a wholly local decision?”

Joe Benton: I want to move on to part 6 of the Bill, which deals with byelaws.

Q135Mr. David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con): You describe the provision on byelaws as one of the most significant devolutions in the Bill, but could it go further?

Peter Facey:   In terms of byelaws, it is a good step, but it could go further in giving local authorities more powers to decide things for their areas. I am not sure that there is necessarily more that can be done on byelaws, but in terms of adapting and having policies for local communities, there is certainly a lot more that can be done.

Q136 Mr. Burrowes:  I understand that, under the Bill, enforcement of byelaws through fixed penalty notices is reserved to those approved by the Secretary of State. More powers for byelaws are given to local authorities, but they cannot enforce them without the Secretary of State saying so.

Peter Facey:   That is one of our general points. Central Government need effectively to give power to local communities and local authorities and then step back. Either local authorities have the power to give fixed penalties, and the Secretary of State agrees, or they do not. There is an idea that the powers are given. One of my pet hates is the phrase, “Good local authorities can have extra power.” It is not for central Government to work out what a good local authority is; it is for the voters of that community to work that out.
 We talked about having a clear separation between the powers of local authorities and those of central Government to make it as clear as possible to voters what the responsibilities of their local representatives are, the people whom they need to hold to account on those issues and what the responsibilities are central Government are. A situation in which you are constantly told, “You can have this bit of power here, but only if you do it in this way” or “I will say whether you can have it or not” is not genuine devolution of power. It is an improvement, but it puts us into something of an “Oliver” situation, in which local authorities are always saying, “Please, sir, can I have some more?” I do not think that that is necessarily good for local government and local democracy in Britain.

Joe Benton: I will allow one just more supplementary, because it is important that we get to part 11.

David Burrowes: Do you want me to move on to part 9 on standards?

Joe Benton: Yes.

Q137 Mr. Burrowes:  Presumably, you favour more local decision making on complaints. Are you concerned, though, that there is a risk that public confidence might be undermined by inconsistent and partial decision making? If so, how could that be countered?

Peter Facey:   At the moment, we have a very peculiar situation. The codes that cover you as parliamentarians are in some ways more relaxed than those covering local councillors. It would be better if we had a code of conduct for elected local and national representatives in the United Kingdom that was enforced, rather than a situation in which local councillors sometimes have more stringent codes and standards than parliamentarians. I find that very strange. We would welcome a move to a uniform set of standards. Maybe the standards that you are willing to work under should be applied. Maybe central Government should accept for local government only those standards that they are willing to accept themselves.

Q138 Mr. Burrowes:  But in terms of the application of those uniform standards, are you in favour of them being devolved locally? They might end up being applied differently.

Peter Facey:   I think that there is an argument for a watchdog body. As much as possible should be done locally, but there might be circumstances in which there needs to be somebody like an ombudsman or a process outside the local authority. You could debate whether the standards need to be completely uniform across the country, but I think there is an argument for having a uniform code of standards.
There is a case in my own ward in which a local councillor has been taken to the Standards Board. It has taken two years for that case to be discussed and it is only now coming out. Although the councillor is saying, “That happened two years ago, why are you bringing it up now?”, people in the community are only now finding out about the case, and that is wrong. If we are going to say that councillors need to be accountable to their local electorates and if there is going to be an outside investigation, it needs to be a lot faster so that local people have the information themselves and local councillors do not sometimes find themselves being suspended, pulled out of things or having their reputations sullied because of a process that does not come to a conclusion very quickly.

Joe Benton: Can we move on to part 11?

Q139Lynda Waltho (Stourbridge) (Lab): I would like to discuss local involvement networks. On Second Reading, the Secretary of State expressed her hope that involvement on them might extend beyond an average membership of about eight to hundreds if not thousands. Will LINKs be any more successful than patient forums in attracting involvement and are there any additional measures that might be necessary to do that?

Alexandra Runswick:   It depends very much on how they are administered. One of the big problems with patient forums was that they did not have much in the way of support. One of the strengths of community health councils was that they had very dedicated staff who had both strong local experience and experience of the NHS. However, because the support for patient forums was outsourced, there were examples of forums, such as that for south London, being administered in Birmingham.
 If you bring in members of the public to give their individual experience of the NHS, they need a lot of support in understanding how the different systems work. With the move from CHCs towards patient forums—and possibly also with LINKs, although I am not as clear on that—we have moved from a representative system that involves voluntary sector organisations to using individual patients and their experience.
 There are merits to both systems. However, if you are going to use individuals, they need a lot more support in fighting their corner, learning how they can work the system and what rights they have. That might well bring more people in, and health is certainly one of those issues—as I am sure that you will all be more than well aware—that gets people involved and agitated.
 Therefore, I do not think there is going to be a shortage of people wanting to come forward to change their local NHS. What is more likely to be a problem is enormous enthusiasm to begin with—which is what happened with the commission—but people do not then know how to channel that and become disillusioned because they believe that they have signed up for something and are not clear what their role is.

Q140 Lynda Waltho:  How would you see this support manifesting itself? What sort of support would you be asking for?

Alexandra Runswick:   There needs to be an administrative support. There needs to be a staff team—whether for a patient forum, LINKs or wherever there is direct patient involvement—that has experience of the NHS, knows the local community and is able to help patient forums, LINKs and the individual patient representatives in LINKs to have their voices heard.
Whether it is eight or 8,000 people in a community, they all have different experiences of their local NHS services and want to have a say. Therefore, you need to have the skills to know who you are supposed to be talking to, what power you have to make your views heard, what to do if you do not feel that something has resolved itself and is not acceptable, and what you can do next.
Involving people is very important but there is nothing worse than partially involving people as they get disillusioned and walk away from the entire process. Therefore, you need to make sure that there is clarity about their role and that they know how to exercise it and have the support, in the form of a dedicated staff team, to be able to fulfil it.

Peter Facey:   Experience in other—

Joe Benton: I am sorry, but we have come to the end of our time. On behalf of the Committee, I thank the witnesses for coming this morning. Your views are much appreciated.

It being twenty-five minutes past Ten o’clockThe Chairmanadjourned theCommittee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned till this day at Two o’clock.